John Mercure, the controversial former WTMJ-TV (Channel 4) reporter, will take over the WTMJ-AM (620) afternoon drive time slot when Jonathan Green retires next month, the station announced today.

Mercure was at WTMJ-TV from 1999 to 2009 before joining Assurant Health, an insurance provider with headquarters in downtown Milwaukee, as communications manager.

While at WTMJ-TV, Mercure, 43, headed the investigative team, was part of the newscast that won an Edward R. Murrow award for the station’s team coverage of an explosion at Falk Corp. and won four Emmy Awards.

But Mercure also had a reputation for sensationalist reporting, like the 2006 sting operation aimed at men who had Internet sex chats with station personnel posing as teenage girls. And he caused a stir with a blog posting, later removed, in which he wrote that a sexual offender should be castrated.

In an interview, Mercure said he had no regret about such stories and was proud of his body of work and approach.

But he said: "There are things I would probably do differently now. I’m a different, more mature person."

Steve Wexler, executive vice president of radio and TV for Journal Broadcast Group, which owns both stations, said the new afternoon drive-time broadcast is "not the John Mercure show," like Green’s personality-driven program. Rather, the show will be a "news program with a news guy in the middle of it," who will "anchor and report."

The Journal Broadcast Group and the Journal Sentinel are owned by Journal Communications.

Wexler said he was not concerned that Mercure’s past work would create a negative perception of what the show would be like.

"Quite the opposite," said Wexler. Mercure’s reputation "as someone who would dig and ask hard questions" demonstrates "that he’s not a guy who will settle for a surface answer on a news story."

Mercure said, "The only thing I’ll bring to the show that is similar to what I did in the past is that I will be aggressive and I will be an advocate."

Wexler said the show - called "Wisconsin’s Afternoon News" - will operate on a clock with "set times for certain things to occur, like top stories, traffic and sports updates."

"But when those things aren’t happening, (Mercure) will be able to dig deeper on the news of the day," Wexler said.

The show will include newscaster Erik Bilstad, sports talk show host Bill Michaels and traffic reporter Andi Miller.

"But to grow the station, we have to be relevant and have content the news audience looks for."

The hiring of Mercure, who is married with two daughters and lives in Menomonee Falls, suggests that the station is less intent on remodeling the folksy but stodgy "Green House" than in demolishing it.

It comes at a time when the legacy station faces stiff competition in all time periods, and follows the introduction of a more responsive ratings system, called portable people meters, in the Milwaukee market.

Green has worked in Milwaukee radio for 41 years, all but two of them at WTMJ-AM. Green had the fifth ranked afternoon show among listeners 25-54, according to the October Arbitron ratings survey, behind WMIL-FM (106.1), WXSS-FM (103.7), Mark Belling on WISN-AM (1130) and WMYX-FM (99.1).

Wexler said Mercure will start showing up on the air "in a limited fashion pretty quickly."

Green’s last show is Dec. 17, after which he will "ride off on his Harley," Wexler said.

The station will hold a farewell event for Green in January.

About Duane Dudek

Duane Dudek is a reporter and columnist covering radio and television. He also reviews movies.